The Scarf
by stripedwalkways
Summary: She lived for those moments, caught in butterfly nets and kept in pudgy fists, fragile things only alive in the ingenuity of their wings. She watched the sky blossom into midnight and her pulse would thrum in her ears, a staccato beat tapped out on the base of her spine. The mud would shift around her feet, and there was nothing but the anticipation of what came next.
1. Come On, Skinny Love

**Author's Note:**

So, this is my first go-around with posting, or hell, even writing a fanfic at all, but I really like the way this turned out, so I'm going to give it a shot.

A few things:

1. I am not British and I really didn't want to screw up any slang, so I just didn't put any in there. I'm sorry.

2. This is an experiment, or rather, it's an exploration. I've been writing for a long time, and I really want to develop the style in which I write. As such, there are some liberties taken with comma uses and run-on sentences. Also, there's not a lot of dialogue in this part; I like to save my dialogue for important things, and I promise that there is normally a bit more than this.

3. I don't have a beta, so I have to edit everything myself. I apologize for any unintentional grammatical errors and/or misspellings. I tried my hardest.

4. It's been a while since I've actually read the books, so if I get any of the canon facts wrong, I will go back and fix it if someone tells me if I am able to.

5. I don't really know where this is going. It could end up being a series of one-shots, but I kind of have the beginning of a plot. I have nothing else written yet, though.

6. I favor darker characters most of the time, but this is supposed to be lighter than what I usually write. The older generation might seem a bit OOC, but I wanted to see what would happen if they didn't end up quite so...normal. There's a reason, normally, for everything I do.

Lastly, I would like to ask for reviews, if it's not too much trouble. I'm doing this mostly to get better at writing, as much as I love the entire Next Generation and Harry Potter cast. You don't have to, but it would be greatly appreciated.

I guess that's it. I hope you like it!

**Disclaimer: **I am not and never have been J. K. Rowling, so the characters and settings are not mine. However, the turns of phrase and the somewhat plot is entirely mine, and I would really like to keep them, if you don't mind.

In the end, it's the scarf, oddly enough, that gives it away. Soft, and worn, and wrapped thrice around her neck. It could be hers; it looks just like hers, identical in every way, but it's too long, too frayed, too used to be hers. She didn't wear hers for more than a week after she got it.

When Rose was young enough to appreciate the sudden newness of nights that lasted past ten o'clock, she would stand by the creek with her toes ensconced in mud and watch the sky change colors. It was subtle, at first, the streams of daylight washing in to the demands of night. The lights of the sun would fade into reds and pinks and purples, that in turn dissipated into midnight blues and indigo as dark as her eyes.

She lived for those moments, caught in butterfly nets and kept in pudgy fists, fragile things only alive in the ingenuity of their wings. She watched the sky blossom into midnight and her pulse would thrum in her ears, a staccato beat tapped out on the base of her spine. The mud would shift around her feet, and there was nothing but the anticipation of what came next.

Later, she would return home, sore and exhausted, sticky and young with sweat, but her eyes would be bright with otherworldly secrets. Later, she would wipe the crushed mud from the soles of her feet and sing along with whatever awful song came on the radio. She would climb into her bed, spent and exhausted, but ecstatic with the ache in her muscles.

The ache in her muscles meant she was real, after all, and who wouldn't want to be real?

But that's later. Then, she creeps into the water with tiptoe feet and sneaking arms. Then, she wades through the creek in a rush of excitement and pads along the opposite shore, looking for mushrooms and wildflowers and the give of blackberries from the shrubs tickling her calves. She isn't exactly surprised when her feet stop touching the dirt, and she starts treading air; she isn't surprised, but she's relieved. There's always a part of her, a small inkling of a part, that this will be the night when no one's lending her the grace to fly.

She stays out until the small hours of the morning, and when she comes back, her house is quieter than it's been in a long time, devoid of laughter, and screaming, and the rustle of board games and campfires that fill it to the seams during the day. Now, her home is just a house, albeit a large one, and the only people inside of it are her brother and her parents.

That's what it's like when the castle's sky is full of big, white, fluffy snowflakes for the first time. The cascade down in a tumultuous overture of ice and wind, a deciduous dance in which the only victory is the final glory of death upon the ground. It's a race, almost, and Rose delights in catching the slowpokes on the pink, fleshy part of her tongue.

For the first week, she doesn't have a scarf. She has blue, woolly mittens and a cable-knit cap, but she doesn't have a scarf to protect the soft spot of her neck from the snow. Even when she finally gets one, she's gotten into such a habit of forgetting it that it's almost like she still doesn't have one. Her cousins try and remind her; Roxanne and Dominique check that she has it before she goes down to breakfast, and Victoire won't let her leave the common room unless she has it. She has it on the way out of the common room, but she sets it down in the staircase, or the windows, or it falls out of her bag and is pushed off into a dusty corner for the rest of the day. Somehow, her scarf always appears mysteriously in the bottom of her trunk at the end of the day.

This goes on for the better part of a month, until it becomes a sort of greeting. "Evening, Rose," James, or Albus, or Fred will say, "Did you lose your scarf?" and she'll make a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat accompanied by the appropriate shoulder shrug.

Honestly, it got to the point that they almost thought she was doing it on purpose.

He gives her the scarf without acknowledgement, and hardly any consequence, at least not for a long time. He drapes it around her shoulders with all the care of a butterfly, here one moment and gone the next. It's soft around her neck, though, so she burrows deeper into it, even if it's far too big. The scarf trails down to her feet, even looped four times around her neck. She doesn't thank him; it doesn't feel like something that requires thanks. Instead, there's a smile, and a laugh, and the continuation of the snowballs flying through the air.

It doesn't last, though. She smiles, and he smiles, and Roxanne throws a snowball straight into her face. The sting is almost surreal, sharp and shattered against her cheeks. The crystals fall into the folds of her newly-found scarf, and she's suitably distracted with the making and jettisoning of snowballs in revenge.

By the time the war is over, her cheeks have turned the color of her hair, and her eyes are brighter than stars in the sky. She tries to give him his scarf back, tries to let him convince him that she has her own, but he says, "Right? That scarf you've been wearing everyday?"

She tries to convince him, but he just smiles and walks back into the castle with his books nestled in his hands.

Surprisingly enough, she doesn't lose that scarf. It stays in her hands, or her bag, or around her neck, red and gold and soft as a kitten. She keeps it, and that boy, safe for a long, long time.

It's the scarf that trails behind her when she walks, twirling through her calves like a cat. The ends are five inches from the floor, and it's much shorter than when she was eleven, but still too long for her.

It's the scarf between her fingers as she's picking through her treacle tart when James and Albus and Fred and Scorpius are talking about the Quidditch match, and Lily and Roxanne and Dominique are talking about the letter from Mum.

It's calming in one instant, and infuriating the next. She feels stifled, but she takes another bite of her treacle, and her claustrophobia slides out of her by melted butter. She runs her fingers across the frayed ends of her scarf, and it feels like home, like late nights catching fireflies and bug bites on knobbly elbows.

On the walk out to the Quidditch pitch, the thing she notices the most is the wind, tearing at the ends of her hair and the tattered strings on her scarf. The wind tears at her, and she feels alive in this moment, feels alive in the integrity of her skin. Her laughter is a bell in the wind, and he looks back at her, that same old, wry smile curving up the edges of his mouth.

Rose looks at him, all dolled up in those Quidditch robes that seem to mean so much, and she traces her fingers along the edge of the stripes of her scarf. It's a feeling in the warmth of her gut, a flutter in the beat of her heart. That's what she feels when she looks at him, what she's always felt, in a way, big-girl longing wrapped up in little-girl dresses and ribbons.

It's like a hummingbird throbbing in her chest all through the Quidditch match, fretting and flying through the space in her ribcage. She watches him, and he looks at her from time to time, and there's nothing she wants to do more than reach out and touch him, slide her nails across the muscles of his arms and the veins in his wrists.

It's almost a close game, close until the very end, where the match ends in a heroic swoop for victory. Heroic in the loosest sense of the word, especially for her family, but still awesome, still cheerable. And she does cheer, a standing ovation of applause that ends in the crowd crowding the pitch with giant whoops of laughter, and red and gold are the only things she can see.

She can't find him, not right away. She's swallowed in a hug from James, and he passes her Fred, who passes her to Albus. Albus holds onto her. He starts talking. "Did y'see it, Rose? Did you see?" which is kind of ridiculous, considering he's been on playing since he was almost too young for a broomstick.

She shakes Albus off, and tries to stand up on her tiptoes, tries to see him above the swarm of people shaking the very Earth around her. She tries, but she can't.

It's midnight again, and she can't make it up off the ground and into the embrace of the sky. Her toes are squirming in the mud, and there's absolutely nothing she wants more than to be able to reach up, up, up into the air to find him, to skate on the wind and the breeze to reach him. Her joints ache dully with the throbbing off her pulse.

It's not love she feels, she knows deep in her bones. It's not anything close to that, at least not yet. She's always been fickle, ever since she was young. That's what her mother tells her. "Oh, Rosie-girl, don't be quite so fickle. Be rational, baby, rational." But why should she be rational when this lightning-struck haziness is seeping in her bones?

It's not love, but it's something, something that makes her stomach flutter like the top of a roller coaster, so much that she wants to wave her arms and open her mouth and scream. She wants to find Scorpius, really. She just wants to find him. She just wants to be close enough to feel the heat radiate off of his skin and see the sweat sliding off of his brow.

She's maybe a bit tired, quite honestly. There's no other way to account for the way she's feeling. Except that she's been feeling this way for a while, small little doses crept in between lazy Sundays spent studying by the lake and Saturdays spent flying broomsticks in circles around her brother and cousins and Scorpius when they all go out to the pitch together. Small little doses in the forms of notes passed during Transfiguration, and looks gleaned across the table in the Great Hall.

They're friends, right now. They've almost always been friends since just after Christmas first year. Friends like Albus is her friend, and James is her friend, and Roxanne is her friends. Friends and nothing more, even when his nails scrape across the tender part on back of her hand.

They've almost always been friends with just the hint of something more, just the hint of something that's mint and apple, an ultimatum of the best kind. There's a line that she's scared to cross, fickle as she is, and that's how the whole thing starts.

She doesn't find him until her family's abandoned the pitch for the celebration at the castle, and the only ones left are novices testing out broomsticks. That is, the only one's left besides them are him and her.

Scorpius is over there across the pitch, looking at her with sparks in his eyes, sparks that leap out towards her on borrowed breezes. She can't help herself now, though, and one moment she's all the way over here, and the next moment, she's right in front of him, breathless and dazed, shiny and gleaming. Her hair flies in the wind, and the scarf is flying, too. Scorpius is right there, and the electricity between them is sparking and dangerous.

He's about to say something, but it's lost in the space between their mouths, which suddenly becomes not very much. She's kissing him, and he's kissing her, and her arms are around his neck, and his are lifting her up by the waist, and then wind isn't really a problem anymore.

When he sets her down, there are stars in her eyes, and laughter on her teeth, and there is nowhere she wants to be more. Scorpius looks at her in that odd way of his, and she just smiles more. His breath sways against her mouth, and he looks like he wants to say something, but he just can't find the words.

She says, "Hi," and then she has to break away because she can't handle how intense his look is when her voice creeps out into the air.

His mouth quirks in the smirking way it does, and he says, "Hello," like it's the most normal thing in the world.


	2. Running Up That Hill

**Author's Note:**

First off, I'm going to thank Scydia for reviewing. Dude, you're awesome. You made me want to write this next bit.

Next, I want to say that this whole thing is primarily going to be Scorpius-and-Rose-centric, but I like the other characters too, so that's what this is. I have this thing where I really like third person, but I don't like fixed third person, so I switch POVs quite often. It makes it more fun.

Next, I'm going to beg for reviews. Feed the starving author!

No beta, not British, yada, yada, yada.

I never realized how much Google didn't like contractions. They're telling me that 'didn't' and 'doesn't' aren't proper words.

So, that's it then.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own a book series, as much as I wish I did. 

In the beginning, there's a train and a game, and the rest is history.

It all starts when the train pulls away from the station, loaded up with trunks and owls and students. Everything is filled with undeniable excitement; all their nerves and muscles and bones feel like they want to shake themselves out of their skin. The first years are pulled taut as a violin string, radiating nervousness that's so much greater than their want to be here.

There's a certain freedom to it, though, a certain exemption from the rules that they wear like a sweater, all bundled up in the cable-knit musk of it. It's all new, and they're making their own choices in ways that actually matter. This isn't a sweet-or-sour kind of choice. It's a jeans-or-a-dress kind of choice that resonates somewhere deep within them.

Still, the very near future is positively frightening. James is, for all his bluff and bluster, quaking in his metaphorical boots. His fingers drum against the meat of his thigh, and the threat of the sorting hangs above his head like a shiny, silver knife. He mouths words at nothing, and when Victoire and Teddy shoot him worried looks, he doesn't notice.

By the time the trolley comes around, he's nothing but a bundle of shivers wrapped around a ball of insecurity, and he's never ever going to tell anyone about this. His cousins buy him a cauldron cake, and then shove him out into the hallway with the instructions to, "Make friends or something. Just, whatever."

The cauldron cake seems to stare him in the face, so he throws it into the trash can, and wipes his hands off onto his pants.

He's surprised when someone grabs his arm and drags him off down the hallway. The compartments pass him by in a rush of long, dark robes and fluffy tabby cats that scratch at the windows and yowl. The moments slow down in the whoop of the people around him and the flare of their clothes as they run. He almost stumbles over his own feet while he's trying to keep up. The train seems incredibly long in the time it takes to get from one end to the other. It's all a blur, and when they stop he's huddled over knobby knees, panting and coughing his lungs out.

"What? Can't handle a little running? I thought you were supposed to be something great, _Mr. Potter," _a girl says.

James looks up to glare at her. Right. Of course when he's having the most nerve-wracking moment of his life someone's got to come along and make it worse. He straightens up, ignoring the ache in his lung, and he's interrupted when he tries to say something.

"Deny it all you want. We know what you're really made of. I bet you're too chicken to even try."

His eyes narrow, but he doesn't want to say anything now. He doesn't want to say anything because he doesn't have a clue what they're talking about. The girl who's talking to him is at least a year older than him, and the sneer curling her lips just makes him want to prove her wrong. He balls up his fists and waits for someone to explain why, exactly, he's a chicken.

"So, do you want to try it or not?" she says, and he nods his head. It's like a dare. He can't back down from it. "Brilliant. Ready?"

"Yeah," he says in a cracked joke of a voice.

What comes next is surprising. The girl cracks an almost viscous smile, and someone waves a wand, and everything changes.

He blinks in confusion for a couple of seconds, wide-eyed and scared. The train is gone, or at the very least, he can't see it anymore. Instead, there's a straight track in front of him, leading off into the distance. At the edges of the track, the people who dragged him here are flourishing wands. Their smiles are extreme in the way that family Quidditch matches in the summer are extreme. The girl is standing at the very front with that devilish grin, and when she says, "Go!", there's more animosity in that word than he ever thought there could be.

He isn't scared until the sparks from their wands flash out and come dangerously close to his skin. He takes another glance at the people lined up on the sides of the track, and he starts running because that's what it looks like they want him to do. He runs along the track like a hamster in a cage, and he dodges the hexes and the charms cast his way.

It isn't until this moment that he's thankful he had a ton of cousins growing up. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have been able to make it all the way to the end. If Fred and Albus hadn't spent all those years ambushing him with rotten tomatoes and pumpkin guts, he wouldn't have even gotten past the first ten feet. As it is, it's close, too close for his liking. Someone almost hits him with one of the hexes, and the hairs on the back of his neck stand up straight like he's been stuck by lightning. There's sweat on his forehead, and he's just stubborn enough to run faster because he has to make it to the end. He doesn't have a choice anymore.

He races on the track, and he wants to get there so badly, he almost doesn't believe it when he can see it. The end is in sight, and floating in the air above it is a shiny silver ring. That girl is next to him again, though, so he puts on an extra burst of speed just to make it.

Five feet from the end, a hex is coming incredibly close to his legs. He eyes the distance, and then he jumps because he thinks he can make it. He does, surprisingly, and he reaches out his arm to grapple for the ring.

It's mystifying why he does that. It's not like they told him to, but it just seems like this is what's supposed to happen. He reaches for the ring, and it feels so special, like that ring is the epitome of everything that's right and pure and important. The ring becomes the only thing he can think about. It occupies his mind in the best way possible. It's like everything else vanished when the train did, and he feels at peace for the first time since his letter came.

He comes so close to the ring. His fingers scrape by the edges of it, but he's not close enough to grab it, so his downfall is quite literally a fall down, down, down on the track.

Except it's not a track, anymore. The train is back in full force, and he lands on the carpet and knocks his head hard on the ground. He bets there are bruises on his legs and his arms, but he doesn't care. He failed. He didn't grab the ring. That's it, then. It's over.

While he's caught up in his melancholy, the girl starts clapping, honest-to-god clapping, and it jerks him out of his reverie without any warning. She's smiling at him, and it isn't even mean anymore. Her eyes are smudges on her face, and she even has the gall to let out a whistle.

"Nice job, kid," she says, and the sarcasm isn't quite the same as it was earlier.

"What d'you mean? I didn't get the ring," he says, and he remembers the way it felt when the ring was right in front of him, close enough to taste.

The girl laughs. "No one gets the ring. Most people don't even get halfway through. Kid, you did well. Besides, you can try again next year."

"Really? Sweet," he says, and he doesn't even mind when they laugh at him anymore. One of the guys claps him on the back, and when he gets up, he can't feel the way his body aches anymore.

A girl reports that it's almost time to arrive, and when everyone disperses, it's like a flipped switch. One moment, the room's so full he can barely move without knocking into someone else's legs or arms or head, and the next, he's completely alone.

On his way back to his compartment, he realizes he's not nervous anymore. There's a light in his eyes, and a spring in his step, and he peers out a passing window, trying to see the castle.

He doesn't know where he'll be sorted, but he can't find the energy to care anymore.


	3. My Rhythm and Blues

**Author's Note: **

This one's for scribbleeexx, and I sincerely hope I spelled that right.

So I kind of figured out where I'm going with the plot. I think the build-up's going to be a bit slower than most, little tidbits dropped in places that I'll explain later. Everything matters, though, so if that last chapter seems a bit unrelated, it isn't.

One thing that I really like to do is mess with time. I made a mistake in the last chapter; I wrote it in present tense. It was supposed to be past, like this one. I might eventually go back and fix that, but I kind of want to move on because it doesn't really screw it up to much.

This one turned out a little dark. I didn't plan for it to be like this, but I really do like where it went.

Right now, I'm getting chapters out amazingly quickly, because I actually have some free time. It's quite odd.

Reviews make me want to write faster. I'm not holding anything hostage, I'm just sayin'.

Alright, no beta, not British, let's get this party started.

**Disclaimer:** Alas, I am stuck down here in the non-J.K. Rowling-clique. It brings me great sadness.

Rose got lost a grand total of 26 times in her first week of school. The first time it happened, she stumbled into Charms with apples in her cheeks, and Flitwick harrumphed before he said, "I guess you'll be taking after your father, then." The second time it happened, she didn't show up until five minutes before class was over, so Flitwick assigned her a paper on the importance of pronunciation regarding the levitation charm.

The third time it happened, Flitwick opened his mouth to scold her, but she laid a monstrous roll of parchment on the front right corner of his desk with an absolute grin on her face. Later, after Flitwick'd kicked off his shoes and relaxed with a butterbeer, he'd combed over her essay with a toothbrush, but much to his chagrin, he only marked off a single point.

It seemed that although Rose Weasley could write a killer essay, she couldn't be bothered to sign her name on it.

That was when Scorpius noticed her, or rather, when she stopped being a blip on his radar and started to actually mean something. Before, it was a passing fancy; he'd talked to her on a lark. He was always curious, after all, about what it would be like to talk to a Weasley.

His dad had made them out to be boogeymen, monsters who were only noticable by the flame of their hair and the filth of their blood. But his dad was broken, crippled by memories of what could've been. His mum was kinder, softer in her hatred. From them both, he learned that Weasleys were to be treated like animals in a zoo, to be gawked at and hand-fed.

It was surprise when she talked to him on the train. It was surprise that colored his responses and made him read between the lines. She was an enigma, and the only thing that kept him from sneering was the ingenuity of her answers and the newness of her wit. She was interesting, so he talked to her, but he didn't start noticing her until Charms.

She was late more than half of the time. He almost thought it was on purpose, from the look in her eyes and the curve of her smile. He almost thought it was on purpose because she always had this shifty look in her eyes when she got away with it, when her gift of whatever project she was assigned previously is offered up flawlessly and accepted.

She got away with it for a week before her mum sent a howler. The look on her face was absolutely priceless when she was staring at that bright red envelope. She was there one moment, all wide-eyed and pale, and then she raced out of the Great Hall and into the hallway. It didn't help; he could still hear the strains of her mother's voice echoing back towards where he was sitting. "I can't believe you, Rose Weasley! Skipping classes, how could you?" her mum said, "Your father didn't even skip when he was in school! This is not appropriate behavior, baby-girl!"

The howler seemed to do it, though, and for the next month she didn't not go to any of her classes. She was always there with a studious look on her face, and Scorpius was suitably intrigued.

He got into a fistfight in the first week of school. It wasn't his fault, not necessarily. After all, he didn't ask to be here, never wanted to join the legions of wizards who flocked to this school like it was a godsend. It wasn't his choice, wasn't like he was here voluntarily by his own design.

It didn't really matter, not in the long run, but in the moment, there was nothing but the scrape of his knuckles on the other guy's cheekbone and the pain in his gut when a fist was solidly planted into it. He wins, but he doesn't enjoy it, especially with the iron taste of blood in his mouth.

Never in his life had he ever felt so small, so huddled and shaking and unimportant. His hair fell into his eyes, and he didn't care enough to brush it away so he could see again.

The biggest surprise was the way the other guy looked, curled up across the hallway with a hand over his blackened eye. He didn't regret it, not really, not in the grand scheme of things. He didn't start it, didn't want to get close to the boy who wanted to get up close and personal with him.

He got three days detention for that, but it was worth it, if only for the way people avoided him afterward. His detentions were served with chewing gum and pencil shavings, and he never really minded them, except for the time he wasted in them.

If the Weasleys were portrayed as monsters to him, everyone else thought he was some sort of roped-in dog, feral and foaming at the mouth. They looked at him like he was the devil incarnate, and he felt like he was obliged to give it to them.

Life was hard after that. Hard because it took so much work not to show them anything, to develop a sneer that stopped even the best of interrogators.

One day, Rose didn't show up to any classes at all. He noticed because he had a habit of noticing her now, even when he didn't want to. It was like an itch in the back of his mind that could only be assuaged when he checks on her.

Everybody else thought she was sick with the flu or the measles or the mumps. No one else seemed worried at all, but he was.

It was irrational, and he knows that now, but he couldn't help it then. She had seemed so fragile, in a hardened sort of way, and he had wanted nothing more than to protect her, than to find her and shelter her from the evil in this school.

Of course, it was only evil to him.

Still, he was worried, and he made a deal with himself that he'd look for her if she didn't show up by lunch.

Charms was agonizing. In the moments when Flitwick was being absolutely awful, he looked for her and the way her eyes always got crinkly at the same time as his. She wasn't there, and that made the class all that much more unbearable.

She wasn't there, in the Great Hall, and it struck a nerve. He picks at his sandwich, toying with the lettuce and tomato and Swiss cheese.

He looked for her everywhere. He checked in all the abandoned classes and down by the lake. While he was there, all of the merpeople bared their teeth at him, but it was inviting, almost charming. He even checked by the Whomping Willow, getting _almost_ close enough to be grazed by the swinging branches. He checked in the common room, by the fire, and in all the odd twists and turns in the school.

It felt like he checked everywhere, and by the time dinner was served, he was absolutely hopeless. It was just like his dad said; he couldn't do anything right. His father always got scary mad when he was younger, anger and grief contorting his face into something unreal, something terrifying. It was his father, after all, who taught him how to sneer.

Dinner ended in a flurry of movement and a rush of noise. After dinner, it seemed, was the only time other people seemed to be willing to get close enough to touch him. He was swallowed by the sea of students, and he winced at sudden elbows shoved into his ribcage and brisque feet stomped on his toes. It's almost painful, in a way, and the pain sparks sharp in his mind, sharp and a remembrance of his hopelessness.

The common room was sprayed in brilliant golds and scarlets that seemed to be the only thing he could see. Most of the time, he liked to avoid the common room until the last possible moment, but today was different because he was worried.

He had never liked being irrational, but he couldn't help it, then. He was worried for absolutely no reason, and it didn't even bother him.

His dad would be devastated, and he knew that, but when he finally, finally sees her curled up in one of those stuffed up chairs right in front of the fire, he doesn't care. She seems so tiny over there, surrounded by her family, one of many.

He felt hollow in that moment, spun out and torn to shreds. He felt unnecessary and unneeded, and it was positively awful. She looked so happy over there, backwashed by the glow of the flames. He thought it was hopeless, after all.

When she looked over at him, her eyes hinted at something, and somehow, it made it all worth it, even if no one knew. He offered up a smile, a real one this time, and the brightness almost blinded him when she grins back.

He didn't miss the glare James sent him, but he chose to ignore it. This wasn't a part of the game, so he couldn't say anything.


	4. Out of Place and Under Dressed

**Author's Note:**

I like this one. I don't know why, but I really actually do. It's all sort of...peaceful, in a weird way.

I feel like I've changed the characters up a bit, but there's a reason for that. It's almost all plot that changes them.

Saturdays are awesome, aren't they? They're my favorite. Saturdays are such an excellent day to review.

No beta, not British, and I think I'm trying to just write these and post them to see what I can do in a short period of time as part of the experiment.

**Disclaimer: **I'm American.

Albus copies his homework off of Rose's most of the time. It's not an active choice; after a while, it just became a habit, like tying his shoes and brushing his teeth. He didn't even really mean to start cheating. It had just sort of happened.

In his second year, he had made the Quidditch team. It had been cathartic, almost, wonderful when the wind had blown his hair out of his eyes, and the rain had blotted the lenses of his glasses. His practice had started with the whoop of his laughter and the sun shining through the goal posts.

That was were it had all began, on the Quidditch pitch on that first day. The practice had been relatively short compared to the ones that would come later, but he had stayed out long past everyone else, just coasting in the breeze. He hadn't wanted to go back inside until Rose had come out to drag him up to the common room, and even then, he'd only acceded because she'd grabbed onto his arm with a death grip that left little crescent moon markings on his wrist.

That had been a bad night. He'd stayed up all night trying to get his homework done, and he'd went down to breakfast in the morning with circles under his eyes and a rasping voice. Rose had looked down at him from her freckle-covered nose, and he had picked at his fried eggs. Their table had been quiet and dismayed, and the sky had reflected that back at them, watery and smudged with grey, grey clouds.

His day had been perfectly awful, from the end of breakfast straight until he'd crawled into his four-poster and hunched his blankets around him. None of his homework was done, and he couldn't stay awake long enough to concentrate on any of his lectures. He only got half marks on his Potions essay, and Mcgonagall just failed him entirely. Rose spent the entire day not talking to him, so it was filled with silence crackling like rotten batteries.

Because he had gotten such little sleep, he couldn't think clearly, couldn't get past the point of, _Oh my god, my mum is going to kill me! _That was what he'd blamed it on, for the next couple of weeks. That was how he'd justified his actions when his conscience kept him up late at night.

"Rose," he'd said long after they'd all gathered round the fire, "How's it going?"

"What?" she had said, with that saccharine smile on her face.

"Well," he'd said, "I've got a bit of a problem. You see, I don't have that much time anymore, because of Quidditch, and-"

She'd interrupted him, "Look. Just give it back before breakfast tomorrow," and she'd promptly deposited all of her homework neatly on his lap.

It had taken a while to build up his courage. His quill had sat laden with india ink long enough to leave blots the size of ping pong balls on his parchment, and still he hadn't even started. Rose's homework had sat leering at him, like it had been blaming him for being too chicken to copy it.

That was what had done it, the blame. He'd been standing on the precipice of something that felt huge, and the blame had pushed him straight over the edge. It had been the blame that made him pick up the quill and scribble the answers in a sloping, droopy calligraphy that was going to give his professors headaches.

Later, he thanks god that, in his sleep-deprived state, he had remembered to change the answers up a little. He still doesn't know what would've happened if he hadn't.

It had taken him a good two hours to copy Rose's answers, two hours in the common room writing word after word until his hand aches with the effort of it. Afterwards, he'd rolled up his parchments, stretched his arms towards the sky in a lazy yawn, and traipsed up the stairs with a half-dead look in his eyes.

The next morning guilt had burnt in him like twigs in a campfire, but he'd turned in his illicit homework with a straight face and raised eyebrows. He had turned in his homework, and as his stomach twisted to shreds, he'd promised he would never cheat again.

His promise had been good for a while, not long, but a while. He hadn't had any more practices like that first one, so he had always had enough time for his schoolwork. He'd even got, on the nights when he didn't stay up late reading books about the Holyhead Harpies and the Chudley Cannons, enough sleep. His eyes weren't bloodshot anymore, and his fingers hadn't shaken as he tipped sugar into his tea.

It hadn't become something he could do without thinking about it until the third time it happened. The second time, his insides had still been a storm filled with flashes of lightning and thunder. It hadn't been the Quidditch match that sent him over the edge that time. Instead, it'd been something as simple as the illness that formed in his lungs, making him spit and cough and throw up until he didn't think he could breath anymore. When he'd cheated that time, it had been with a heavy hand scraping the words on his parchment.

The third time, it'd been nothing but easy, simplicity for the sake of being simple. It had been lazy bones and summer haze that works his quill along. He hadn't had a reason, not really. He had just been so sick and tired of it all, of all the assignments, all the lectures, all the professors. He'd wanted to be done with it, so he'd copied her homework and drug his broomstick off onto the pitch.

James had stolen the practice snitch his first year. When they'd found out, he'd said something about, "Bringing back a legacy," and that was that. It had been his prize possession for a grand total of six months after they found out. It had disappeared, and then they were all treated to four days of James sulking before he forgot about it.

On the fifth day, Rose had come to Albus with a secret in her eyes, and he had inherited the snitch before he'd ever even contemplated cheating.

It had been the stolen snitch he'd chased on the nights that he'd flown in the star-speckled dark. The golden gleam had called out to him like a midnight-headed siren calls out to the not-yet-shipwrecked sailors. The snitch'd been growing to represent so much more than winning, so much more than the temporary rush that came from the adrenaline of beating others.

After that, cheating had just been what he did, a way to pass the time, to try and game the other side. He still isn't entirely sure who the other side is, even four years later, but he still wants to win whatever game they're playing.

He doesn't know what's going to happen when they catch him, and they will catch him eventually, he knows that. Even a perfect game fails eventually, but he wants to keep playing. The game brings him joy, pure and simple. Every time he gets away with it, it's another notch cut into his belt, bringing forth a new wave of difficult.

It's like he's caught in stasis, paralyzed and immobile. Everybody laughs, but he's always a beat behind. He's distracted all the time, like he can't concentrate, can't imagine what it feels like to feel anything. He's stuck in the moment, and he doesn't care to get out.

He knows that it's wrong fundamentally, in the way murder is wrong and stealing cookies from the pantry was wrong when he was younger. He knows, but he just doesn't want to change. He's fine like he is, at the moment, so he'll play the waiting game. He's always been good at waiting. It comes with the territory. He's the middle child. Of course he's good at waiting.

In the meantime, he still copies Rose's homework. He still spends hours out on the Quidditch pitch with just a snitch for company. He shows up for lectures, but where there should be notes, there are doodles of knives and wands and massacred aliens.

Rose judges him. He knows she does, and he doesn't blame her. She takes after her mother too much for him to blame her. She doesn't tell anyone, though, so he's grateful for that. She disapproves, but she still talks to him, still hangs out with him and Scorpius in their corner of the common room.

Every so often, she'll ask him about it. "Are you still-you know?" and he'll say something along the lines of yes.

They devised a system, a while ago, where she'll leave her homework sitting atop the fireplace, and he'll lay it on her usual spot at their section of the table in the Great Hall. It isn't anywhere near perfect, but Rose says it saves her conscience, so Albus goes along with it.

It's like that game they'd played when they were younger. Her mum and his dad had taught it to them. They'd called it Hide and Seek, and said that Muggle children played it all the time. He'd always been better at it than her, if he remembers correctly, but it had never mattered back then.

Albus knows his mum would kill him if she ever found out, but he's never been afraid of death. It's just one of those things that never bothered him. It's like spiders or clowns. Everyone else is afraid of them, and he's never managed to figure out why.


	5. And the Postcard's Gonna Read

**Author's Note:**

This one's actually ridiculously sweet.

One note: there are references to the Muggle world because I feel like Harry and Hermione would still hold their childhood close. Maybe not Harry, but Hermione seems like she had a pretty awesome childhood.

Also, everything in Rose and Scorpius' sixth year is present. All the others are flashbacks or the past or something like that. You know what I mean.

When you don't feed the author, she gets depressed. And then she starts writing too much fluff and eating too many sweets. So, review if the plot should progress in a semi-decent manner!

**Dislaimer: ** If I were J. K. Rowling, I wouldn't live in the middle of central America. There is seriously nothing here.

Seven days looms too long in the distance, so they all go down to the lake and build a bonfire to rival the flames of hell. The sparks that fly off of it illuminate their faces, and when dark falls across them like the curtain on a stage, they provide a spectacle to the rest of the school, a source of entertainment that will be spoken about all through break. Hell, someone's probably going to sell details to the _Prophet._

The guest list is exclusive, almost, but no one's surprised to be there. It was a surprise, but it was expected. It's like they decided to move out of the common room and host a rebellion by the lake. That's how simple it is. The stars look down at them impassively because they kind of already knew this was going to happen.

Fred, Roxanne, and Scorpius still haven't figured out why they absolutely had to have a real fire. They'd argued for Bluebell Flames, if only for the easiness of extinguishing them. None of them could understand why Rose's eyes lit up when they flicked sparks at the balled up newspapers that served as kindling. James' wonder as he held his hand above the fire is completely foreign to them. Albus had tried explaining, using short, simple words because he didn't know how else to describe the fascination they felt, the synchronized pull on the strings of their heart when the air is filled with the woodsy scent of smoke.

They don't understand, but they go along with it anyway because they love the others, even if it seems completely idiotic. In any case, they have to admit that the smell of roasting marshmallows is heavenly, and the taste is even better when they lick the fluff from the inside of their teeth.

"You know," Scorpius whispers in the shell of Rose's ear, "This is one of those times where I think you're family's crazy."

Rose just laughs, because she's always known her family is crazy, but she lifts her head off of his shoulder to ask, "Why's that? What's so crazy about this?"

His response is his nose nudging the curve of her neck and his mouth pressed against the swell of shoulder, but she doesn't want to give in, not tonight. This is the last night, after all, before they all head out in separate directions with their respective branches of their families for the first time ever. It's weird to think about, like a delusion or a dream. It's weird, but it's freeing and even a bit exciting.

Fred and James start a game of Exploding Snap. They're really the only ones playing, but that doesn't stop them. It's ridiculous, and both parties shout insults at each other when they lose. James roars off with, "Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

Fred replies, "I don't have a clue what you mean, but my mum is not a hamster!"

It's only funny because of the look on their faces and the volume of their voices, but Albus is doubled over with a stitch in his side, and Rose ducks her head down to muffle her giggles. Roxanne lifts her head up from where it rests on her boyfriend's stomach, but the insult is ridiculous to her, so she justs sets her head back down and turns another page in her book.

Even when the night grows long, and they can't stop their yawns to save their life, no one gets up to move. Their breath is transparent with the laze of their muscles, and the grass is ticklish against their spines. The night stretches on like the sticky remains of bubblegum between their fingers, and it's peaceful, a ship between the chaos of too-many classes and too-much family. It's exhausting, and it is so wonderful to take a break, to stop being perfect for the sake of the cameras.

Fred and James abandon their game. They don't get tired of it; James declares that Fred's cheating, but Fred is vehement in his denial. The cards sit while they bicker, but they bicker for so long that all of the cards go up in smoke. Now, they're just arguing, and no one else can tell what they're going on about.

"We should go swimming," Rose says, and her whisper is almost lost in the way the moonlight feels against her skin.

"Now?" Scorpius asks, and delight is evident in his voice, even as it's layered by a film of hesitance.

"Of course now. When else would it be?"

Before Scorpius can do anything, Rose has stood up and marched closer to the water than he's ever gotten before. He jumps up after her, and by the time he catches up, she's already dropped her shoes and her sweater off by the side of the lake.

Albus is close on their heels, and he says, "What're you doing?"

"What's it look like?" Rose says, "We're going swimming," and by now she's gotten down to her tank top and shorts. She's standing right on the edge of the water, and her toes are curling in the mud.

"But- why?" Albus asks.

Scorpius just shrugs and starts to pull his shirt over his head. Albus shakes his head, but he goes along with it.

Rose already has water up to her knees and seaweed between her calves. She's laughing, and when Scorpius walks up behind her, she's alreadyturning around and splashing him. The drops just barely land on his chest, but he's grinning as he chases after her. The world is the sway of the water around her hips and her hysterical laughing when he finally catches her. In just a moment, he goes from wrapped up around her because they're playing tag to wrapped up around her because she's started kissing him.

His fingers are gripped around her waist, and hers are cradling his face and tugging at his hair. Her eyes are open when she looks at him, and he wants to tell her to close them, but then he'd have to move his mouth.

When they finally break away, because he's remembered that just about all of her cousins are gathered on a beach fifteen feet away from them, her face is flushed and her mouth is worn ragged. He rests his forehead on hers, and when he looks sideways, he can see the merpeople watching them. It's almost a bit creepy, but he doesn't care right now, not when her warmth is seeping into his skin with fantastic intensity.

When they get back to the shore, they collapse in a pile on the grass, and their laughter echoes in the stillness. Albus is right there with them, again, dangling his toes into the water. The dirt sticks to their backs, and fireflies buzz in the air, and it's sweetness personified.

James and Fred are still arguing, but they've moved to the point words to arms wrapped around necks and legs kicked in the backs of knees. Roxanne is just watching from the sidelines, digging her chin into her boyfriend's stomach.

The fire is still burning bright in the darkness, and it's miraculous that none of the professors have dragged them all inside. People are watching them from the castle, but they don't really notice. They've gotten all too used to being watched, considering who their parents are.

Albus falls asleep. He just passes out by the water, with his toes still brushing the surface. No one notices.

Scorpius is holding himself up on his elbow, twisting the strands of Rose's hair between his fingers, and all he feels is calm. Rose is running her palms along his chest, and her mouth quirks when she finds a particular spot that makes him shiver.

"A week is a long time," she says.

He nods and just keeps playing with little twists of hair.

"I'll miss you."

His chest feels too tight when the words leave her mouth, and the air is soft with the sound of his exhale. "Miss you, too," he says, and then he kisses her again, because he can't help it.


	6. Better All the Time

**Author's Note:**

This one's for scribbleeexx, a guest reviewer, and the other people who followed and favorited my story. scribbleeexx, your reviews are why this is here today. I literally wasn't going to write this yesterday, but I got your review and I sat down and started typing.

With that said, this chapter kicked my ass. What you're reading has almost no relation to the way I started it yesterday; it's entirely different. I swear, I spent a good five hours yesterday working with something that I ended up entirely scrapping. I'm still not sure if I entirely like the transitions in this, but I really actually do like my OC, so I'm posting it. (A side note on the OC, he's kind of a cliche, but there's a reason for that.) I've also never been to Prague, but I looked at pictures of it online, and it looks really pretty! I'm sorry if I got things wrong!

This is where the plot actually starts. Before, it was just background information that I'm planning to use in the future. Now is when the bad guys come in.

This story is still Scorpius-and-Rose-centric, but I'm going to add Albus and James as characters. I have plans for them.

Review, please! It makes my day seem like rainbows and kittens, and the next chapter is written quicker!

**Disclaimer: **If I wrote Harry Potter, no one would know what it was.

James spends his break outside of the hotel, away from his family. They're exhausting, if not for how overwhelming they are, then for the way he has to act around them.

When he's with his family, he always has to watch what he says. It's been this way ever since he was little. When he's with his parents, he can't say what he really thinks because he never knows who might be listening, who might be watching. It's exhausting, and it makes it so that they can never talk about anything real.

Out of the blue, his grandparents had decided that this was a good year to go away, to take a vacation. The rest of the family had followed suit and spread out all over the world. Even though this year, the only family he has to deal with is his parents and his siblings, he still doesn't have enough energy, so the outside becomes a refuge away from all the craziness.

The coffee house is an accident of the best kind. He has never spent much time in the Muggle world. To be quite honest, he never saw the point. His world is bright and interesting and changing by the second. The Muggle world always seems a bit lowkey, cloudy and murky like a puddle of mud.

They use a Portkey to get to get to Prague, an old porcelain doll with shiny glass eyes. From the moment he open his eyes in this bright, new city, he knows something is different. It's partly in the way the city looks, like it has a magic all of its own. The streets are crooked and cobbled together, and the houses stand out like illustrations in a fairytale. It's new and fantastic and different, so on his first day, he grabs his wand and whatever Muggle money he's managed to collect and walks out the door.

He doesn't find the coffee house until three in the afternoon. By then, he's exhausted, and the air is heavy against his skin, hot and humid. He walks into the coffee house with lidded eyes, and when he yawns in the barista's face, he means no offense. Before he slumps in booth, he orders a lemonade because it's too hot for normal tea and iced tea makes him vomit.

He doesn't start to like the coffee house until the barista brings him his order and leaves it on the table with no charge. Free anything has always made him happier, so he drinks his lemonade and spends the rest of the afternoon sitting in that same booth.

When he goes back to the hotel, he leaves a handful of random bills on the table.

The break passes quicker than it normally does. Normally it stretches on and on, laden with the weight of arguments and laughter. He loves his family, he really does, but sometimes they're too much. He feels like he's too much when he's with them. Fred's his best friend. He really is. It's just so exhausting trying to respond with the banter they've grown used to. It's so hard trying to be this person that he isn't, all suave and swagger. It's nice to have a break, to be somewhere where he isn't the center of attention all of the time. Now, the only time he has to be clever is in the few seconds after he gets back to the hotel but before he can retreat to his room. It's freeing.

He spends his days at the coffee house. He ran out of money on the second day, but he'd borrowed some from his mum, even if he still had no idea what it's worth. Lemonade got old, so he'd switched to smoothies sometime in the middle of the week.

On their last day in the city, Albus tries to follow him, and Lily tags along with him. "Where're you going?" Albus asks, and James just wants him to leave.

"Nowhere," James says, "Shove off."

"No. We want to come with you," Lily says, "We haven't seen you all week! Mum said you have to do something with us."

James casts a disparaging look back at them. "But I don't want to do something with you. This is a vacation, isn't it?"

Lily grabs onto his arm and turns those puppy dog eyes up at him. "Please? Pretty please?"

"Look, Lily. You and Albus go do something. I'm busy," and then he takes off down the street, trying not to look back at his younger siblings. He knows he's being unfair, but he can't do it right now, can't put on the act to fool them all.

So he disappears down the street and leaves them in his dust. He takes shelter in his coffee house, and since he's feeling depressed, he orders something extravagant.

There's a straw in his smoothie, striped red and white, and he uses it to stir the drink around. He's not particularly thirsty, but he feels bitter and tired with the effort of keeping up his persona, so his drink is half-gone in a matter of minutes.

When the man sits on the opposite side of the booth from him, he doesn't even look up, absorbed as he is. It isn't until the man says, "So, what's your problem?" that his interest is piqued.

"Who said I had a problem?" he asks, and the man's response is a laugh.

"Everybody's got a problem, kid. You just keep yours out in the open on your face."

Now that James really looks at the man, relaxed on the opposite side of the booth, he realizes how strange this is. "So? Got anything to say about it? My mum told me not to talk to strangers," he says, and then he goes back to picking at his smoothie.

"Really, James? Is that anyway to talk to a friend?" The man clicks his tongue when James reaches for his wand. "Don't do that. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to help."

James scoffs at that, and when the man's smile reveals too many teeth, his unease grows even more. "What do I need help with?"

"Easy, kid. We've got all day."

James shakes his head, and says, "No, we really don't. Now, if you don't mind-"

The man has a grip like an iron when his fingers close around James' wrist. "Now, now. You might wanna listen to what I'm saying." James goes rigid in the moments after that, trying to even out the raggedness of his breathing. He's dealt with nutjobs before, wizened, old wizards who wanted the wars to go on longer than they had, but this man is different, almost lucid in his madness. "I meant what I said. I'm not gonna hurt you. I'm here to offer you a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"An easy one. Easy as homemade apple pie." The man lets go of his hand, and takes a cigarette out of his pocket, tucking it between his teeth. "I'm going to offer you luck. Those problems you've been having, whatever they are? They'll go away sweet as can be. All you've gotta do is say yes."

Now, James is holding his breathe. It couldn't be this easy, not really. "What's the catch?" he asks.

"No catch."

"No, I mean, what do you want? You said it was a deal."

The man laughs again and flicks a lighter at the end of his cigarette. "All we want is to observe. We like watching. It's what we do best."

"That's it?"

"That's all. So what d'you say?"

James doesn't know what to think about this. This could change everything, could change the very way he lives. And if there's no catch-

"Done," he says, and as the man snubs the cherry red end of his cigarette out on the table, he can't bring himself to regret his decision, even as it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

The man stands up and smooths out the wrinkles on his crumpled suit. "Pleasure doing business. Have a nice day," he says, and then he tips his hat and walks out the door of the coffee shop.

James stays for a while longer, sucking on the dregs of his smoothie through that striped, bent straw. He looks down at his hands, but he can't see anything that's changed in him. He wonders if that whole conversation was real, or if he just imagined it. Shouldn't he feel different if he's luckier?

They use the Portkey to get back to their house, and the doll's dead eyes stare straight through him.


	7. All On Me

**Author's****Note:**

Thanks to scribbleeexx for reviewing. I love you, but this one's for me because I've kind of had a crap day.

I'll let you in on a secret. I hate writing dialogue. I absolutely abhor it. It's really hard because you have to think about absolutely everything at the same time. That said, this one is mostly dialogue. I hope you enjoy it.

The last two, this one, and the next two are all on the same timeline or happening simultaneously. After that, there's going to be a few more flashbacks. It's kind of confusing, but I feel like it'll work.

My life is getting pretty busy again, so this is probably going to be the end of everyday updates. I'll still try to be quick, but it might take a bit longer.

Review, review, review! It's nerve wracking posting these chapters, and reviews make it all better!

**Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling is rich. I have about ten dollars on me right now.

Scorpius' house is quieter than sin, but that's nothing new. He walks into the foyer dragging his trunk behind him and brushing his hair out of his eyes. He's going to have to cut it pretty soon, preferably before his mum sees, but for now, he'll leave it and hope they don't notice. There's a pretty good chance of that; with his parents, they're either drunk in the living room or passed out in their room, and he just does his best to avoid them most days.

He worries on the days that they pay attention to him. It's not that they're mean. They've never been mean, not in the way that everyone else defines it. He knows they all think his parents are monsters. Even Rose, sweet as she is, makes that distasteful look whenever he mentions them. It's just a fact of life, and he's learned to deal with it.

That doesn't make any difference when he's standing in his parents' foyer, hoping that they just kind of forgot that he was coming home. It's happened before, where they went away for a weekend in Paris and he had to content himself with whatever remnants they left in the fridge.

No such luck, however, as his mum is the first to appear, incandescent at the top of the stairs. "Oh, darling," she says, "I didn't know you were coming. You should have owled."

When his mum envelopes him in a hug of perfume and pearls, he doesn't mention the fact that he did send an owl, sent one laden with sweets from Honeydukes because he felt like they should have something sweet in their life. "Yeah, mum. I'm home, again. Missed you."

"I'm sure you did, sweetie. Now, you should really go out back and see the azaleas. Bonnie did such a nice job with them this summer! You should see the spells she used, they were simply amazing-"

"Astoria, dear, I don't think he particularly cares about your azaleas. He's been too busy gallivanting off with his new, little friends." His dad, as always, makes a grand entrance. "Tell me, Scorpius, what do the Potters think of your mother's garden?"

Scorpius shoves his hands into his pockets. It seems that, against all odds, today is not going to be a good day. "Well, dad, they thought the azaleas were lovely."

His dad snorts out a laugh, and then his mum says, "Really, dear, they don't feed you enough up at that school of yours. Let's go see what Bonnie's got going in the kitchen. And your hair has gotten so long! Bonnie'll cut it later and make it all better."

His dad says, "Are they not feeding you enough? Or are you just too busy with your redheaded, little girlfriend to wander down to the Great Hall? Didn't think I'd heard about that, did you? Thought you'd keep it a secret?" and Scorpius can feel the tension collecting in his fingers, curling them into fists.

"Don't talk about Rose," Scorpius says under his breathe, so his father can barely hear him.

"I know exactly what you've been getting up to at that school of yours. And I had such high hopes for you, too. It's a shame, really, that you've gone and wasted it."

When his father gets this way, the only thing he can do is wait it out, just put up with his antics for however long they happen. Rose, and Albus, and their entire family have never understood why he loves his parents. And he does, love them, that is. Even when they're being perfectly awful, he can't help

it. They're his parents. He has to love them.

That doesn't change the fact that he can't stand them when they're like this. His dad will start it; he always starts it with misplaced anger and dirty accusations. That's when his mother comes in, like she does now. "Don't you dare start in on him now! He just got home!"

His father roars back, blinking and exaggerated, "I'll start in on him whenever I want! He's my son, isn't he! I'll do whatever the hell I please!"

"He's my son, too, and I won't have you speaking to him like this! It's not right," she says.

"Right, like spending all his time with the Potters, of all people, is right? Like being in that godforsaken, idolized House is right? We raised him to have more sense than that, didn't we? We raised him to be a man, didn't we? So, Scorpius," his father says, turning to face him, "Why aren't you acting like a man?"

"At least I'm not trying to kill anyone!"

He regrets it as soon as he's said it. He doesn't mean it, not in the way that it sounds. He's just so done with all of this, all of his parents' stupid arguments and the way they feed off of each other, but he knows he's gone too far when his father reels back like he hit him. Their conversations always go like this, starting off slow and then escalating so fast he can barely follow it.

His father has always been difficult to deal with, and his mum just made it worse. They talked each other into breakdowns for the hell of it, and he was just so worn out, so tired of it. His dad stumbles and backs into a chair, and when his mum leaves his side to go and comfort his dad, he just walks outside.

He walks out of the foyer and into his mum's garden, and he's so, so thankful when his parents stay inside the house. He loves them, but there are moments when he wishes he didn't have to.

The thing with his parents is that he's never felt important, like he was just a plot hole in their big, epic quest of a journey. They've been stuck in their own little world, stuck in past worlds of hurt, and he's just been a disappointment.

He misses Rose. In moments like these, he misses the taste of her skin against his mouth and the scrape of her nails against his arm. He misses talking to her, too, going off on non sequiturs that he can't really follow but likes listening to. He just wants to be back at the castle, back at the bonfire, back at the moment where they went swimming under the moonlight and the stars.

He sinks into one of those garden benches his mother were just perfectly modern, and buries his face in his hands.

He doesn't notice the man who steps out of the trees until he's standing right next to him, blowing cigarette smoke into his face. "Evenin', kid."

Scorpius raises his head, looks up at the man in the rumpled suit, and says, "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm nobody. Just a friend. All I want to do is help."

Scorpius laughs. He can't help it. This is all just so ridiculous. "Right? Is that what you want? What could you possibly do to help?"

"You'd be surprised. So," the man says, as he sits next to him on the bench, "What's your problem?"

"_A_ problem? It'd be easier to count the ones I didn't have."

"Come on, kid, that can't be true. How old are you? Fifteen?"

"Sixteen," he snaps back, and the man takes another puff of his cigarette.

"Easy, easy. I'm not being condescending, just saying."

"So why are you here?"

"I can't just stop in for a chat?"

"You just happened to wander into to a random person's garden, because you wanted to stop in for a chat? I don't buy it," Scorpius pauses, takes a

deep breath. "What's the real story?"

"Well, you look like you could use a bit of luck, if you know what I mean."

Scorpius looks up at the man. He should throw him out of the garden. He should yell for his parents, even as ensconced in a breakdown as they are. He should draw his wand and threaten this stranger who thinks it's alright to randomly drop in in stranger's gardens and offer luck.

He should do all of those things, but what he does instead is take one last look back at his house and say, "I'm listening."


	8. Comes at their Expense

**Author's Note: **

This one's shorter than most, but I kind of like the way it turned out. Albus is hard to write. His motivations are weird.

I know that I'm not going about this plot thing as elegantly as I could, but the main thing I'm trying to develop is characterization and style. The plot is still there, but it's kind of secondary.

I had fun with this one. It was interesting. And I'm getting a new laptop for my birthday, so I won't have to steal my mom's, so I should be able to write more.

Review, review, review! Reviews make the author want to buy everyone chocolate cakes! Imaginary chocolate cakes, but chocolate cakes nonetheless!

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling is significantly older than I am.

Albus doesn't like Prague. It's too crumbly for him, too cracked and washed out. It's like an overdone sugar cookie, turning brown around the edges. The whole city has the feeling that it's bit off more than it could chew, and Albus isn't fond of the outcome.

He's never had a good sense of direction. It's one of those things he's always hated about himself. He's like a lost puppy when he's somewhere he's never been, reliant on someone else to help him find his way. In his first hour, he manages to find three dead ends and get irrevocably lost.

James would lord this over him forever if he knew, which is why Albus isn't planning on telling him. They've never been good siblings, James and him. They've gotten by, sure, but they've never been good siblings.

There's something about living in the spotlight that kills relationships. When they were younger, it was easier to get along, easier because not everything was riddled with meaning that the Prophet took great efforts to dissect. When they grew apart, it wasn't because there was some inconceivable difference between them. They grew apart because it felt safer that way, so in the moments where they actually were being watched they didn't screw it up.

So he wanders around, lost in Prague and doesn't call anyone for help finding his way back to the hotel. He doesn't really need it anyway. He's got nowhere to go except back to the hotel, and he doesn't want to do that anyway.

Eventually, as the shadows fill out the city with brightness, he does find his way back to the hotel, but when he gets there, James has already closed himself off in his room, and he can hear his parents mooning over each other from outside their room.

Lily is sitting in the hallway, though, so he slouches down on the ground next to her. "Nice city, isn't it?" he says, and when she snorts out a laugh, he counts it as a win.

"Nice? Albus, you hate it," she says as she tucks her arms around her knees.

"Oh. I forgot. If that's it, then, I'll see you later," he says as he starts to get up, but Lily grabs his wrist with a slender hand.

"Stay," she says, "I don't really like it, either."

He stays. "Did they do anything interesting today?" he asks because he hadn't really stuck around long enough to find out how anyone else was doing.

Lily turns to look at him with her wide, wide eyes and says, "Who? Mum and Dad? They've been locked up in that room ever since we got here. I'm waiting for them to come out so I can get some extra money."

"What d'you need money for? We just got here."

She blushes and says, "I tried to buy some candy- down at the convenience store, they have this amazing nutty, caramely, chocolatey thing- and apparently not all money is the same in the Muggle world. They wouldn't give it to me, so I had to come back here."

"That's it? That seems like garbage."

"Well," she says, with that look on her face he's been watching out for ever since she was little, "I kind of lost the key to my room, too."

Albus shakes his head, but the noise from his parents' room isn't getting any quieter, so he says, "Look. Just stay in my room tonight, 'cause I don't think they're going to be leaving anytime soon."

"You're probably right," she says, and when he offers her a hand to get up, she takes it.

Prague doesn't get any less confusing as the break goes on. If anything, it gets even more convoluted and confusing. On the third day, he's just about given up, but he still gives it a shot, still goes out into the city with semi-high hopes.

He only makes it as far as the convenience store across the street. He ends up leaning against the wall, watching the people crowd the streets. It's odd, but he's never spent much time watching Muggles, and it's intriguing how they do things, like there's no way to make their life easier, no other choice. There aren't wands tucked into back pockets or children toting around chocolate frogs or jelly beans. He can look around, and no one's looking back at him because of who he is.

He's nobody here.

The day passes in the juxtaposition of businessmen and tourists, and Albus doesn't get tired of watching them. It's too mundane, too normal, and it's fascinating.

Eventually, he slides down the wall of the convenience store and tucks his hands into his pockets. The snitch is in his pocket, has been in his pocket all through break, but he hasn't taken it out yet. Now, he does, and its wings trill out like overeager batons.

The man sits next to him, and Albus notices, but he doesn't really care. He runs his fingers across the snitch, and then goes back to watching the people in the street.

"Evening, kid. How's it going?"

Albus turns to look at the man, who lights a cigarette, and says, "Okay, I guess. Not too bad."

"Okay? Should be aiming for more than okay, kid. So why are you 'okay'?"

Albus pauses, because he's never really thought about why he was okay before. "I guess… I don't really know. It's just the thing you say."

"Just the thing you say? You and me, kid. We're going to have a good, old time." He takes another drag on his cigarette. "Want one? I've got more than I can really handle." Albus blinks, but he accepts the proffered cigarette with a wary look. "Jesus, it's not going to bite. Here."

The man lights the cigarette, and with his first inhale, Albus is coughing, hacking his lungs out through his throat. "What the hell is that?" he says, before he smudges out the cherry red end on the ground.

"It's a cigarette. Keep up." He takes another drag of his. "Look, kid. This isn't all pleasure. I've got a deal to offer you."

"What sort of deal?"

"A good one. Just listen. Your time's about up, only got a bit of it left, but I can keep that from happening, if you just make this deal."

"What're you selling?"

The man turns watery blue eyes back to him and says, "Luck. You in?"


	9. Sad in Photographs

**Author's Note: **

This one's the last one on this timeline for a bit. We have to jump back before we can go forward again, and I'm really looking forward to it.

I don't really have much to say. This one's a bit shorter as well, but I think the next one will be longer.

It makes me sad when you read and don't review. See, I'm sad :(

That's it, then.

**Disclaimer:** If I was J. K. Rowling, I wouldn't be writing on a fan site.

Rose's parents stay home over break, and Rose is entirely convinced it's because they want to argue in the safety of their own home. She would be miserable if she was anyone else, stuck at home while all of her cousins get to go off to Prague or New York or Paris.

She's not anyone else, though, so she's content where she is, even if it's not somewhere exotic and foreign like the rest of her family. She's content to sit in her house reading through her mother's old earmarked copy of _Hogwarts: A History_, or lying outside on the wild, shagged grass with the wind blowing through her hair. Most of her break goes by in the same way as her afternoons at the castle, uncomplicated and stretched out in the length of her thoughts.

Her mother makes her breakfast one day in the middle of the week, and it turns out perfectly awful because her mother has never been able to cook anything in her life. However, it's the thought that counts, so she sits down at the table with her mother and her father and her brother to a breakfast of soggy eggs and too-crispy bacon. Rose mostly drinks orange juice and listens to her parents' usual back-and-forth. It's nice, though, and when breakfast is over, they linger longer than they have to.

Her parents end up going out to Diagon Alley with Hugo, so she's on her own for the first time in a long time. She relishes it, and she takes the day off as a cue from the heavens.

She tries it that afternoon, out by the creek. Her toes dig into the mud like they did when she was five, and she wishes with tightly clasped fingers and closed eyes. She always tries at least once when she's home, for the sake of her memories when she was younger, and it's always worked. There's always a moment, though, where she's jittery and worried, hopeful and bitter all at once. There's always a chance that the oncore will not come, and she is well and truly past her moments of flight. It's never happened before,but she's petrified of when it does.

The water in the creek is smooth as glass, and the wind brushes the flowers against her legs. She stands up on her toes, and the world confines to the squish of the mud against her skin and the shake of her calves. She holds her breath until her face turns pink and her lungs quake with the effort of keeping herself upright.

The night folds around her like a deck of cards. Everything is technicolor and sparkling as fireworks, and the stars turn out to wink at her from way, way up in the sky. The seconds tick tally marks on her skin, and she waits silent in the dark.

It's morning before she finally gives up. Her face falls, and her eyes open, and she sinks down into the muddy banks of the creek with tears in her eyes. It's ugly, and her arms catch around her ribs, trying to hold herself together, but she just can't. It feels impossible, under the weight of those memories, to have flight just taken away from her. It feels awful, and she feels positively wrecked.

She sinks into the dirt, and she's absolutely exhausted. There aren't many things that take her breath away, but this is one of them. Nights at the creek have been her constant, since she was so small she didn't know what to do with herself. It's like taking away the ability to talk, suddenly and with no warning. She doesn't understand.

The man doesn't approach her until she's picked herself up off the ground, ragged and worn with the darkness of her grief. Her eyes are dull around the edges with tears, and she can't focus on anything.

"You seem to be at the end of the line, kid," he says, and she wants to punch him because has anything ever been so obvious?

Instead she says, "Do you really think so?"

He nods and takes his hat off of his head before dropping down to the ground next to her. "So what's it feel like, to be finished?"

She wrinkles her nose and brushes her hair out of her eyes. "I'm not finished. I've got other things- Scorpius, and Hugo, and school, and my cousins."

"Right. That's why you're here, howling in the mud?" He snorts, and the cigarette at his lips is winking in the dawn.

"Oh, shut up. What's it to you, anyway? You're just a stranger, not even that, really. You're just here." She stands up, brushes off her skirt, and turns around with a huff.

She tries to walk away, but the man walks with her. "I'm here, so that means you tell me, right?"

She sighs. "Whatever."

"Look, kid. I'm here to make a deal."

"A deal? What kind of deal? Why?"

"Because that's what I'm supposed to do. That's my job."

"Kind of a crap job. Why me?"

"Because I felt like you could use it. Is that good enough?"

She pauses, plants her hands on her hips, and says, "I suppose. So what do I get out of this deal?"

"Luck, pure and simple. Makes everything sweeter in the end."

"So what do you get out of it?"

The man turns a smile back at her, but his teeth are obscenely pointy. "All we get is to observe. That's all we want in the long run. Just to watch."

"Seems like there's a catch," she says, and there's a bit of her that almost doesn't care.

"No catch."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Good to know." She wraps her arms even tighter around her middle, and turns around to face the man. "Is that it?"

"Pretty much. It's kind of a one-time thing, though, so I have to have an answer."

Honestly, she can't make up her mind. Her wounds are still raw from just minutes ago, and she can't imagine her life without Sunday

nights at the creek, but the deal seems shady, and she can't help but feel there's something he's not telling her, something big.

She wants to say yes, but she wants to say no. It's complicated and impossible, and she doesn't know what to do.

"You need an answer," she says slowly, and she sends him a glare when he nods with a patronizing smirk.


	10. As the Real Thing

**Author's Note: **

This next week is going to be hell on me, and I'm going to make a deal with you guys.

I promise that at the very least, I will update on next Sunday, but I'm going to be so busy that I won't be able to do much before then.

Unless a couple of people review. If a couple of people review, I will stay up until four a couple of nights and get something out in the middle of the week.

So, there.

I swear, my life was just in stasis for this last week or two, and now everything is starting again.

I've been watching British TV shows. They make me want to say 'cheers' all the time.

Cheers!

**Disclaimer: **I bet J. K. Rowling doesn't spend near as much time watching Netflix as I do.

They made a pact years ago, Lily and James and Albus, but Albus doubts that Lily was old enough to remember if he asked her about it now. It's just as well, really, since they haven't kept that pact anyway.

But years ago, long enough that the edges of his memory are fuzzy from time, that pact meant everything in his too-young mind. There was a thunder storm, he remembers that much, and the sky was full of lightning, and the air was full of thunder. He had opened a window, opened it to let in the rain, and even soaked to the skin as he was, he sat right next to it. Lily had gotten scared. That was the only reason she was there in his room when James came in. She was over there, tucked into his bed, suckling on her thumb.

James came bursting in at around one after midnight. He remembers because they used to have an old, ticking grandfather clock that chimed every half hour. Honestly, it was more like half after one, but that was besides the point. What mattered was that James came into his room with his breath coming in gasps, and Albus was actually kind of worried.

As soon as James got into the room, he slammed the door behind him and leaned back heavily upon it. Albus levied an expectant look in his direction, but James couldn't catch his breath for another five minutes.

"I've just come," he said, "I've just come from 've got cameras, all sorts of cameras, just waiting out there, looking at us."

"So?" Albus said, because even though he'd always been precocious, he couldn't make the connection between cameras outside and an after-midnight visit to his room.

"So? They're cameras! Cameras are- are positively awful!"

"Why?"

"Because they just are!"

By then, James had crossed the room to come and sat next to him at the edge of the window. "Why'd they come out in the rain?"

"I don't know!" he snapped. "Why'd they come out in the sun? It's their job!"

"I'm just asking. Why're there cameras?"

James shrugged. "I dunno. Mum said they're for Dad, but Dad said they're for Mum. It doesn't make any sense. Why d'you have the window open, anyway? It's raining outside."

It was Albus' turn to shrug. "I dunno. I like the rain. It's nice."

It was at that moment that somehow the cameramen turned up right outside his window to brandish their cameras at them in a semi-frightening manner. Albus blinked at them before slamming the window shut as they flashed their cameras. He turned to look at James, but James just stared back.

"James, Albus, Lily," their mother called, "Shut the windows, pull the curtains, all of them!" She opened the door into Albus' room and stopped when they saw that the curtains were already pulled. "Oh, good, you got them. I- James, Lily, what are you doing in here?" She shook her head. "Doesn't matter. I have to go get the other curtains. All of you, bed, thirty minutes." She emphasized this with a wave of her hand, and then she breezed out the door onto the other rooms in the house.

"That was odd," Albus said.

"There are cameras outside! How is that odd?"

"Well," Albus said before getting up to go and check on Lily, "It's not like they haven't been here before. You'd think you would've noticed."

James was silent for a while after that, and Lily is well and truly passed out in Albus' bed, so Albus just dropped to the floor next to it.

"Albus, I don't like cameras. I really don't. They're just too- too everywhere, all the time. It's bothersome."

Albus nodded, and said, "They are rather bothersome, aren't they? With their stupid, little lenses and their bright, bright flashes?"

"Exactly. So what do we do about it?" James is on his feet, again, energy and motion.

"Do? We don't do anything. We just sit here and take it. It's not our job, anyway."

"Doesn't really matter, I guess. I just don't like them."

Albus laughed. "I don't think anyone likes them, James. That's kind of the point."

"Really?" James sighed before he sank down to the floor next to Albus.

"Really."

That was when Lily woke up, will fluffs of hair sticking up and and drowsy eyes. "What's happening?" she said, "Did I miss anything?"

"Not really. Just the cameras," Albus said.

"Cameras? What cameras?"

"Just the ones outside. No big deal. Stupid, really," James said.

"I don't like cameras," she said, and everyone laughed at that.

"That seems to be the general consensus," Albus said, and Lily dropped her hands down to bury them in their hair.

"Of course it's the general consensus," James said, "They're stupid." He paused. "Yeah. We should make a deal. No more cameras. Ever."

Albus smirked because he knew that would never happen, but he said, "Deal. And how do we plan to pull that off?" anyway.

"We're wizards, aren't we? We'll figure something out, eventually."

"Of course," Lily said, "Now, I'm going back to bed. Night." And then she turned around and went back to sleep in Albus' bed.

"So how do we pull this off?" Albus asked.

"I dunno," James said, "I guess we'll figure it out when the time comes."

"Right." Albus looked back at Lily, sleeping in his bed. "Where do I sleep now?"

James laughed, got up, and said, "You'll figure something out," before he walked out the room.

Albus shook his head, went downstairs, and passed out on the sofa.

He still remembers that night, but he doesn't think anyone else does. Lily, he could understand, considering she was asleep for most of it, but when James pulls out that winning smile and panders to the very thing he said he hated, Albus gets confused. He watches, and he thinks it's impossible to understand, but he's got bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

He's running out of time, he knows that now, but he's got to do everything he can to pull out these last few minutes. So when James starts his arguments with Fred in view of every camera in the world, he doesn't pay attention. When James spills secrets to the school's biggest gossip, he doesn't care.

It feels like James sold him out, and Albus doesn't like it. He hates it, quite honestly. It makes him want to go up to James and shake him until he admits that he's not the same brother he's always been. It's infuriating, and he feels like he can't do anything about it anyway. James has been a stranger for a while, and Albus doesn't understand.

Albus might feel betrayed, but that's not important right now. Old memories of pacts don't matter to those who have secrets, especially if they wish to keep those secrets. He's got too many things to do and not enough time, so who is he to notice when his brother's acting weird? Other things are more important, other things that he has to devote his attention too.

That's why he doesn't notice when James disappears on the train. He's too busy calculating his next move.


	11. Don't You Believe

**Author's Note:**

I know I missed my deadline. I'm sorry. I got a bit busier than I imagined I would, so I didn't have any time to write.

I alluded to this one a long time ago, in the third chapter, I think. This is kind of the whole moment I had in my head when I started this, so I hope you like it.

I'm going to be busy for the next week and a half. It's unavoidable, and I really won't have time to do any writing at all.

Please, please review. It really helps, and it makes me want to keep doing this. Reviews make my day, and when I don't get any at all for a long time, it depresses me. They really do make me want to write faster.

**Disclaimer:** Not J. K. Rowling.

Scorpius only talked to her because he was curious. That's what he tells himself later, when he's walking into the Great Hall for the first time, and he catches a glance of red hair in the sidelines. That's what he tells himself later, when he goes home to his mother and his father, and they ask him if he met anyone interesting. That's what he tells himself later, when he stays up at night thinking about the angle of her neck or the curve of her mouth.

But in the moment, all he thought about was the fact that this girl was new and mysterious and interesting, and he couldn't help but listen, even when he didn't understand. And he didn't understand most of the time, but it didn't really matter. He could pick everything up from the way her eyes lit up when she said something about babies in corners, or the way her fingers moved when she talked about the high rate of suicide in America. He was hooked, even if he didn't realize it, and he denied it for the longest time.

The train was the catalyst, the start of it all, the beginning of everything. He just hadn't realized it yet. Back then, the train felt like an obstacle course, a series of unavoidable confrontations that he was trying his hardest to avoid. The worst part was that they didn't even talk to him. Everything was said in the feet layered on his hard enough to leave bruises and the elbows that knocked into his ribs when he was looking for his parents through the window.

Except that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was the way that some people came up to him, came up to him and offered him congratulations on that 'right powerful decision his parents made'. Those ones were the worst, the ones who poked at him and prodded at him, not because they hated him, but because they wanted to be him. Those ones were the worst.

He was so thankful when he found the empty compartment. He was so thankful because he couldn't last another second out in the hallway, not with the bruises and the scratches and the coveting looks. He finally understood why his parents spent all their time in that big, empty, mansion of a house they call home. It was easier, easier to avoid the others and get caught up in the drama of his own life.

He sat down on the padded, red seat, and his whole body slumped against the window with exhaustion, and his whole mind got stuck on the feel of the cool, cool glass on his forehead and the soft, soft velvet seat against his fingers. His eyelids felt crumpled, and his ribs felt like they were heavy enough to fall right off of his spine.

Rose has always had flaming red hair, and that's all he saw when he woke up in the compartment. Flaming red hair and knobby bird knees, and he was entirely confused as to why she was here, in his compartment, where he's supposed to be alone. He rubs off his sleep-crusted eyes and says, "What're you doing here?"

She was startled. That much was obvious from the flight in her hands and the wave of her hair as she turns around to look at him. She was startled, but that didn't stop her from smirking at him with sharp, pointy teeth. He didn't necessarily like it then, the way her mouth curved more on one side than the other, but he was suitably intrigued even before she said anything.

It was only after she left that he realized that she was, indubitably, a Weasley. He figured that the reason he hadn't already realized was because his head was still foggy from sleep, but later, he realized exactly who she was.

Later, he made a deal with himself that he would never talk to her again. Later, he convinced himself that it was a one-time thing, brought about by the haze of sleep and he pain radiating out from the middle of his ribs. Later, he talked himself into the idea that he would never notice her again.

But then, he could only watch as that fragile, bone-thin girl sprawls in the seat across from him for apparently no reason whatsoever. She sprawled, and he watched, and the seconds ticked by in the ache in his breath and the gasp in hers.

She didn't look at him at all after that first initial surprise, so he said it again, "What're you doing here?"

Her reply is almost lost in the excited chatter of her teeth, but she said, "'m sitting. Isn't it obvious?" and then she goes back to listening to absolutely nothing.

Scorpius thinks he remembers being incredulous, but if he's being honest, he was just shocked, shocked at this girl who came out of nowhere and took his breath away, shocked in that way that stuck the hairs on his neck up and straightened his spine. But he didn't have anything else to say, so he sunk back into his seat, and his eyes drooped close again.

When he opened his eyes again, the girl was right in front of him, looking at him with those dark, dark eyes, and he shrunk back even further in his seat. She was crowding him, almost right next to him, and he couldn't figure out why.

"What're you doing?" he asked at the same time as trying to disappear into his seat.

"'m looking," she said, "Isn't it obvious?"

"Brilliant. Would you mind, maybe, looking somewhere else?"

"Uh-huh," she said, but she took a couple steps backwards and turned to face the window.

He stood up, then, and went to look out the window next to her, but honestly, his attention was more focused on her than any of the stars in the sky.

When she spoke again, he was paying attention this time, but he still couldn't follow her. "I like stars. They're- they're all wonderful and bright and ridiculous. I like stars because they make so much more sense than everything else."

Scorpius stuck his hands into his pockets and said, "Why doesn't everything else make sense?"

She shook her head, but she still wasn't looking at him. "They do make sense. They just make- less sense, you know?" she said, and then she was quiet for a while.

"I always thought that stars made less sense than everything else. You know, different and somewhat impossible."

"That's what most people think," she said, and then she turned around and walked out the door.

"Wait! Who're you?" he asked, because he was still genuinely confused by this girl.

She turned around and offered her hand out for him to shake. "Hello. I'm Rose."

He took her hand and said, "Hello. I'm-"

She interrupted, "I know who you are. Good luck with the sorting!" and then she was gone, and he was left in an empty compartment

again.

After that, he was left to puzzle at her oddness in the emptiness of his compartment.

He didn't see her again until the sorting, but when he did his whole world shattered. Mcgonagall called her name, and he was kicking himself for being so stupid. How could he not realize? How could he not understand? It was so ridiculous.

Mcgonagall called, "Weasley, Rose," and he couldn't believe, though in hindsight, it seemed obvious.

She was a Weasley, and he felt so stupid because he didn't realize it, so, so stupid. But she went up to sit on the stool, and she smiled out

at him from under the brim of the sorting hat, and he was almost lost.

That was when he made the deal with himself to forget about her. That was when he convinced himself that it was all a joke, and that it never really mattered at all. That was when he told himself that she never mattered.

That was what he told himself, but he didn't truly believe it.

He had already gotten enough to hide from his parents, though. He couldn't tell them he was in Gryffindor. He just couldn't.


End file.
